The organization that's been charged with putting an astronaut on Mars by 2030 has officially been assembled. NASA finally announced the creation of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate today, an organization that will put humanity deeper into space than we've ever been.

Back in May, President Obama laid out some ambitious (and awesome) goals for the US Space program, calling for manned, deep-space missions to asteroids and Mars by 2030, and a heavy-lift rocket by 2015 that is capable of not only getting NASA's astronauts into deep space, but bringing them back, as well.

Earlier today, President Obama spoke at the Kennedy Space Center, outlining the future of the US…
Read more Read more

The HEO is a combination of what was formerly the Space Operations Directorate and the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, and will be in charge of all of NASA's deep space efforts as we look to Mars and beyond.